


Nightmares + Sharing

by shelovestoship



Series: A Slow But Definite Progress [2]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mac being there for Riley, Nightmares, One-Shot, friendship feels, hints at MacRiley feels, kinda angsty, post 4x13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:41:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24950971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shelovestoship/pseuds/shelovestoship
Summary: Riley has a bad dream about prison. Mac shares a nightmare of his own.
Relationships: Riley Davis & Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016)
Series: A Slow But Definite Progress [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1808032
Comments: 5
Kudos: 70





	Nightmares + Sharing

**Author's Note:**

> So I’m thinking Riley dreaming about Jack and Mac returning her to prison is about how she’s feeling like they’re both leaving her - Jack very much actually having exited her life and Mac with his relationship with Desi and maybe everything that went down with Codex. 
> 
> The Smee bit was just to make it extra disturbing when she got back to the prison I guess, and I’m leaving it up to your - I’m sure very capable imaginations - to just what went down to make her wake up screaming.

## Nightmares

“You did good kiddo,” Jack told her as he and Mac walked her back into the prison. “Wish we could keep you. But you know, we can’t have criminals working missions requiring top secret clearance.”

“But we’re going to be a family,” she said, because she knew this wasn’t how it went.

She never had to go back. They freed her from her cage, gave her a new life and she owed them everything for that.

“Please by the way you two were bickering this whole case that was never going to happen,” Mac said, smiling. But it wasn’t the smile she loved, it was his distant, pleasant, stranger smile. A smile he’d never used on her.

“Mac.” She grabbed his hand. “We save the world together. Don’t leave me here.”

He shrugged her off. “I can do it without you.”

“Bye kiddo,” Jack said with a wave as she was handed off to a guard.

And they walked away.

Bars closed and she was back.

Back in the most terrible place, she’d ever been. And she’d been many terrible places...or she would be.

“It’s not real,” she told herself as she was roughly shoved to her least favorite guard.

Smee, a bald man with a ruddy tan and watery evil eyes. When he looked at her with those eyes she felt like she simultaneously needed to take a shower and hide under her bed. It wasn’t sexual, she knew that look -men had been looking at that way since ninth grade - it was something else.

She hadn’t known it when she was here the first time. When it had been real, when she had **really** been in prison. But she knew it now. Some men, some people, what they wanted most was to hurt someone. Preferably someone weak, helpless, someone under their control. To make someone already powerless feel even more so.

That was what Smee wanted to do to her. Hurt her until she wasn’t _her_ anymore.

“Let’s go get you out of those street clothes and back in a jumpsuit huh,” Smee said and wrapped a meaty paw around her upper arm.

 _Wake up_ , she told herself, because she knew, she knew this wasn’t real. It wasn’t. This was not how it would have happened if they had brought her back. Two of the female guards would have taken her, not Smee. 

Mac wouldn’t have smiled at her like he didn’t know her.

In fact, Mac wouldn’t have taken her back here at all.

 _Wake up,_ she told herself as Smee smiled at her as he pushed her into an intake room. 

But she didn’t wake up. 

Not until Smee was done with her.

* * *

Desi stopped to grab her gun, but Mac just ran when he heard her screaming. A million terrible images flashing before him - the worst thing about his brain is that it tended to give him all the scenarios, possibilities, rather than just the ones he wanted, the good ones - of what could be wrong.

There was no one in her room, no one but her. There was no Murdoc or other past threat. No bomb or other possibly life-threatening devices.

She was fine. Or at least not in immediate danger.

“Are you alright?” he asked as a wide-eyed Riley gasped for breath, looking around as if she wasn’t sure where she was.

“Where they go?” Desi asked as she came in, gun up as she scanned the room.

“It’s- no one is here,” Mac said as he sat on the edge of Riley’s bed. 

“I’m sorry,” she said, trying to smile for him, even though her breaths were still coming too fast and he betted her pulse was racing. “Bad dream.”

“You got this babe?” Desi asked him while smiling at Riley. “Mac has nightmares so often he’s basically an expert at dealing with them. Or not dealing.”

Desi touched his neck as a goodbye/goodnight and Riley looked away. Mac wasn’t sure what that was about but also felt the time to think about that wasn’t now.

“You want to tell me about it?” he asked once Desi had closed the door, leaving them alone in the near dark of her bedroom.

“Not really,” she said, pulling the sheet up to cover herself more even though she was wearing a t-shirt. 

“Yeah,” he said, nodding. “I don’t like talking about mine either.”

“Bad dreams huh? Clowns or spiders?” she asked jokingly, maybe to change the subject, maybe to distract herself.

He didn’t mind either way. Didn’t mind sharing with her. Because she was Riley. He thought, maybe, he’d relive, reveal, re-tell any story to make her feel better.

“Mostly the end of the world,” he said, smiling even though it wasn’t funny. “But not as it’s ending. It’s always the horrible life after.“

She frowned. “Life after?”

“Like the night after Yellowstone, when...”

“...Gwen died,” she filled in for him.

He nodded. “I dreamt Codex succeeded but the dream was months later. You, me and Desi were on a big ship on the way to Australia. The sky was so dark and it was so cold. Everyone was hungry, dying from simple things. I, we, were trying to help, but people kept dying.”

”What woke you up?”

“You died,” he told her honestly. He didn’t tell her that her dying was one of the most common reasons for him waking up in a cold sweat.

“I died? Well that’s a bummer,” she said, sounding almost back to herself. 

He had to smile at that.

“You dream about things like that a lot?” she asked quietly. “Desi-”

“Desi was exaggerating,” he told her, not wanting her to worry.

Because now that Codex’s main plan had been stopped and they were on the run, they surely would be able to stop the remaining members from enacting their plan. His nightmares of dystopian worlds, of his father before he blew himself up, of his mother smiling as the world burned, visions of Riley, Desi, Bozer, Matty, Jack, even Taylor dying, would stop.

“Yeah?” she snorted. “That’s not really something she’s known for.”

“Maybe I have been having some trouble sleeping lately, but I’m working on it,” he admitted.

“I’m sorry,” she said, pulling her knees up. “I didn’t mean to wake you guys. I never...I’ve never woken up screaming from a nightmare before.”

“Must have been pretty bad,” he said softly, hoping she’d share. Because sharing was meant to make things better wasn’t it? He wanted her to never again have to experience a bad dream like the one she’d just had. Like the ones he was plagued with.

“The world wasn’t ending, no one died,” she said, looking away. “So I’d say it was pretty tame compared to yours.”

“Mmm, I don’t know,” he said, “It takes a lot to scare Riley Davies.”

She said nothing for a long time and he wondered if he should get up and leave. Maybe she needed her space. Mostly that was what he wanted after he had a nightmare, why he didn’t talk to Desi about them.

He stood.

“In prison there was this one guard,” she said, stopping him in his tracks. “Smee. He’d give me, everyone really, these looks.”

Mac tensed, already not liking the sound of this story, but committing every detail of it to memory in case it was something he could do something with. 

“I thought he was just a normal creep. I mean a lot of people who want to work as prison guards aren’t the most well adjusted. There is a lot of...power plays. But he was something more.”

A horrible image of this Smee watching her, thinking horrible thoughts about her, wanting to hurt her, planing to, flew through his mind. Maybe hers too, for she shivered even though the room wasn’t cold.

“Smee?” Mac asked, wanting to make sure he had the right name.

“I mean, he never hurt me while I was there but...” she bit her lip. “But I was scared he would. And in retrospect, I think if he’d had the chance, he would have.”

“He was your nightmare,” he stated, definitely sure he was going to look into Smee. 

Because if Riley thought he was more than just a slightly creepy guy, they could do something about that. If Smee was actually hurting inmates, they could have him arrested. Maybe that would prevent her from having nightmares about the guy.

“In a way,” she said, laying down, facing away from him. 

That was his cue to leave. For sure. 

But he couldn’t. Not without knowing the rest of it.

“What does that mean?” he asked as he sat back down on the bed. That made her draw in a quick breath. "In a way?"

She turned onto her back, looking up at him.

Sometimes, randomly, it would hit him just how beautiful she was. Even though he knew it, occasionally, she’d just do something and it would smack him right in the face, the way it had that first day he’d seen her in that prison.

He remembered that in a strangely fond way. She’d been this beautiful, almost wild creature with so much spirit. Different from everything he’d known before her. He’d been impressed by how unbroken she was, despite the place she was trapped in. Immediately wanted her out of there, perhaps more for the spirit she’d showed, than for her computer skills. 

He still admired her for surviving two years in prison. Not just surviving but somehow not losing who she was.

“You took me back,” she said and suddenly tears were in the corners of her eyes. She quickly swiped at them and turned away from him again.

_You took me back._

It didn’t make sense for a second. Then it did. Her dream had been about prison - about Smee - and he, Mac, had been the one to deliver her to him.

He was mute for a long time, not sure what to say to that. “You know I’d never have-”

“It doesn't matter Mac, it was a dream,” she said sharply even though her voice was thick. 

Clearly it _did_ matter.

But he didn’t want to impose anymore. Especially when he had been part of her bad dream. 

_You took me back._

It rang in his ears as he left her room and went back to his own bed. Desi was already fast asleep on her side of the bed. They rarely touched in their sleep, as if some sort of invisible force field kept them always at least a foot apart as they rested.

He wondered what the dream meant, tried to analyze it from multiple angles. It was more than he’d ever done with any of his own nightmares, but being honest, none of them had ever made him feel as bad as this.

 _You took me back._

Surely she knew he’d never do that. Not even after having just known her for two days could he have taken her back. Never. He’d have fought for her.

It hurt to think she feared he’d betray her, even if it was only on a subconscious level. Hurt to think she could ever imagine he’d ever not need her, want her, in his life. Because that had to be what the dream mean, didn’t it? As much as dreams meant anything. That she was scared he might betray her somehow? Leave her behind even.

For a second he suddenly wanted to go apologize to her, but what for? Being the bad guy in her dream? That would just be strange. For doing whatever he had done to make her subconsciously doubt him?

Even if an apology like that would have made sense - and it wouldn’t - what were words? Mac, like his father, had never been very good with them. 

So instead from now on, he’d prioritize her, make sure he was there for her when she needed him and that way, she’d know that he’d never betray her or let anyone take her from him.

Yeah.

Yet, even with that decision made, he couldn’t find sleep again. He tried very hard. Shutting his eyes, deep slow breaths, quick-slow-quick-slow combos. Counting sheeo.None of it worked.

Finally, he checked his phone. Clock said 5:03. Since wasn’t that much earlier than he normally woke up anyways, he got out of bed and quickly found his gym bag and changed and then got his running shoes on.

When he opened the bedroom door, the door across - Riley’s door - opened almost simultaneously. She too, wore workout clothes.

“Hey,” he said, stopping halfway up to putting in his headphones.

“Hey,” she said back. 

“Couldn’t go back to sleep?”

She smiled. “Something like that.”

“Nickles' park?” he asked, knowing this was one of her favorite places to run.

“Yeah, I’d like that,” she said, still smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> So no real resolution here, I did have a slightly fluffer idea in mind when I started but this just felt more right when I was writing it.


End file.
